Pete's swim blog

Auburn SCY Invitational Meet

As usual, Conner and his team put on an exception meet! And we were especially spoiled this year since the SEC championships will be held in Auburn next weekend. That meant some serious upgrades to an already very nice swimming pool. The pool was drained and repainted. The tiling on the deck was redone. I think someone said they got new bulkheads. At the very least, the bulkhead at the start end was much wider. They set the pool up between bulkheads to minimize any wave reflection. The water did feel a bit warm... maybe 82-83 but I didn't have any way to measure it. The coolest thing was the new starting blocks. These had the adjustable wedge and were hooked up to measure response time. The best part was that they were fitted with a couple rows of led lights that flashed green at the start of each race. This feature was cruelly snatched from us on Sunday. Apparently the lights are hooked into the response time system which had issues and needed to be shut off. I was able to go back to listening for a sound but I have been forever spoiled by the lights.

As for me, the meet did not go very well at all. For one thing, I'm about 15-20 lbs overweight. But the wheels really came off during taper. The first 3 days were great and I felt like I was way ahead of last year. But over the weekend I got a sinus infection followed by a mysterious illness. In practice I had speed but no endurance... even for the very short taper sets we did. Friday morning, I woke up nauseated and considered not going at all. By noon, I was improving so I went ahead and made the trip. That night, I swam in the Auburn pool but still wasn't feeling great. Saturday morning, I was a little better but far from 100%. As the meet progressed, I was slowly starting to match my meet times from last year. So, for times it was mostly a lot of disappointments. Here's how the events went:

200 Fly - Seed: 2:21.24, Time: 2:29.07 (34.17, 37.91, 38.31, 38.68)

This was the first indication that things weren't going to go well over the weekend. The first 50 was fine but I quickly fell off the pace from last year. The last 10 yards or so, my body went into shutdown mode. Fortunately I was close enough to the wall to gut it out. During cool-down, all I wanted to do was throw up.

100 Breast - Seed: 1:09.53, time: 1:13.63 (35.59, 38.04)

Not sure what to say about this. It was just slow and I botched my first pullout. I was in a heat with a bunch of 1:05 ish swimmers which just amplified how slow I felt.

200 Free - Seed: 2:04.61, time: 2:05.89 (29.62, 31.65, 32.46, 32.16)

The girl next to me was seeded at 2:00.00. She went 1:55. I tried to keep up and didn't do a very good job of it. But at least I was in the ballpark of one of my worst swims from last year. Even better, I had a little extra for the last 50.

I really just cruised this event. I had a relay coming up and nobody was in my age group contesting me. There were really only two of us with seeds under 5:00 and the other guy scratched. So, 5:05 wasn't terrible for holding back a bit. In fact, this was probably my best swim of the day. It definitely felt better than the others did.

I didn't feel completely warmed up for this race but it was a lot of fun. The swimmers on both sides of me had excellent swims and we pushed each other pretty hard. I started off about a second off their pace and then slowly chipped into their leads. I actually overtook the guy in lane 3 with 25 yards to go but he out sprinted me on the last leg. The guy in lane 5 had us both at the last turn but couldn't bring it home. I touched .01 seconds ahead and the finish.

200 Back - Seed: 2:41.39, time: 2:38.08

Finally beat a seed time! And this was a personal best. This was from a couple years ago and my backstroke has improved a lot since then. With nobody in my age group contesting this, I relaxed it and got ready for the final two events.

50 Breast - Seed: 32.16, time: 33.58

Not great but not terrible either.

200 IM - Seed: 2:24.40, time: 2:24.30

Not my best but I beat my time from last year. Finally started feeling closer to 100%.

Despite my struggles, I did win high point. I had a lot of fun (as usual) and I got to swim in a really nice pool with all the trimmings for a big NCAA event. Definitely worth the time this weekend and I'm glad I decided to go.

Comments

Clearly you grew stronger as the meet wore on. It looks like the first hint of this was the 200 fr, then the 400 IM really turned things around for you. 'good thing you stuck it out. (The 50 br doesn't count. That's a ridiculously frustrating event.)

Thanks Karl! This morning we did 55 x 100 on 1:15. I made 35 before I had to start skipping some (missed 3 total) so I think my strength is back now. I have no clue as to what I got. Never had a fever but I had periods of nausea along with lack of any kind of endurance. As for the breaststroke, I'm still doing times I did 5 years ago when I first started. Sometimes it looks like I'm making progress and then I slip back. Two years ago, my 200 fly surpassed my 200 breast and now my 200 back may pass it up as well. It is a mysterious stroke.